Bilingualism in Hong Kong

Annex I of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration provided that in addition to Chinese, English may be used for official purposes in the future Hong Kong special administrative region; in March 1987, the Official Languages Ordinance was amended to require all new legislation to be enacted bilingually in both English and Chinese.

Hong Kong became a crown colony of the United Kingdom in 1841, and was established as a free port to serve as an entrepôt of the British Empire.

Signboards written in Hindi or Urdu are common in areas with South Asians, and languages such as Nepali, Sindhi and Punjabi are often heard on the streets of Hong Kong as well.

[citation needed] In addition, the large number of domestic helpers[7] from Indonesia[8][7] and the Philippines[8][7] made Indonesian and Tagalog significant minority languages in Hong Kong.

In 2004, the Home Affairs Bureau and Metro Plus AM 1044 jointly launched radio shows Hong Kong-Pak Tonight in Urdu and Harmo Sagarmatha in Nepali.